A New Entry in the Annals of Academic Cravenness

If colleges won't stick up for free speech, why would they oppose the implicit censorship of 'trigger warnings'?

By

Joseph Epstein

May 27, 2014 7:33 p.m. ET

For those who have not yet caught up with it, in the academic world the phrase "trigger warning" means alerting students to books that might "trigger" deleterious emotional effects. Should a Jewish student be asked to read "Oliver Twist" with its anti-Semitic caricature of Fagin, let alone "The Merchant of Venice," whose central figure is the Jewish usurer Shylock? Should African-American students be required to read "Huckleberry Finn," with its generous use of the "n-word," or "Heart of Darkness," which equates the Congo with the end of rational...